While it is only fair to say that large areas remain unresolved, there is a growing consensus, at least among a significant group of archaeologists, that the most appropriate context for the introduction of the Indo-European languages into Europe is the spread of the Neolithic way of life. In other words, the language originated among the early food producers of south-west Asia and thereafter spread through Europe, one branch following the route through the Balkans to the Great Hungarian Plain and then westwards through the deciduous forest zone of Middle Europe, the other spreading westwards through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic shores of Iberia. In both these zones Indo-European was swept quickly forwards in the fifth millennium as the language of the colonizing farmers. Europe Between the Oceans, p. 138

So let's discuss this relative to genetics and try to stay on topic. I've read Anthony, Mallory, Renfrew, and some Gamkrelidze and Ivanov on the topic of the origin and spread of Indo-European. I can't say that any of them delivered for me what I would regard as a knockout blow in favor of their particular arguments. There is a lot of detail involved, and a lot of very specialized linguistic information. It's confusing. Add to that the genetic jumble and you have the ultimate Gordian Knot.

That said, the one thing that seems to me to strongly - very strongly - commend the Neolithic Farmer hypothesis of Renfrew, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov is the impact of the Neolithic Revolution. It provides what certainly looks like the solution to the puzzle. In it you have a powerful vector for the spread of language and culture.

The Kurgan hypothesis has a lot to commend it, too, but where it falls short, it seems to me, is in explaining how Indo-European spread all the way to the Atlantic. It seems especially weak on the genetic front, when R1a is claimed as the paramount Indo-European y-haplogroup.

If the steppe people spread Indo-European, where are their remains in western Europe? If they only started the ball rolling, what was the mechanism for the transmission of Indo-European farther and farther west? What was the incentive for the non-IE natives to adopt Indo-European language and culture? Maybe I am missing something, but, with the Kurgan hypothesis, I just don't see it. Steppe culture seems to wither on the fringes of Eastern Europe. Where does it show itself in the West as the vector of Indo-European?

Were R1b to be found among some of the Kurgan peoples of the steppe, I would find the Kurgan argument a lot more plausible, since one can find so much R1b in the West.

Anyway, now there is Gordon Whittaker's new paper on Euphratic as a possible very early Indo-European language stemming from just where Renfrew, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov argue Indo-European originated: eastern Anatolia.

The spread of the Cardial people from Italy is dated at least at 7700 YBP (I think they carried IE languages and R1b hg. and were autochthonous agriculturalists). Euphratic is dated at not more than 6000YBP. There are more than 1000 years for spreading some of these peoples from the Balkans to Middle East. As I have said in another thread, the links of Euphratic with Latin and Italian language (see what is said about donnola in the paper) is very strong. I’d wait to conclude something renfrewly.

I don't think R1b or the Indo-European languages first arose in Italy. I didn't start this thread to rehash that. Of course, you are free to post what you want.

Unless I am mistaken, the oldest M269 is in Anatolia and the Near East. The SNPs and haplotypes then progress in age (meaning they get younger) north and west from there.

You are the only person I know of who has advanced the idea that Italy was the original home for both R1b and Indo-European in Europe. In addition, you put M269 (or M343?) there during the Younger Dryas, which requires a throwback to the bad old days of Zhivotovsky and exaggerated haplogroup ages (a thing that would balloon the age of y haplogroup I, for example, way beyond reason).

I still think Anthony proposes the better argument on how IE spread as far as the time-frame. I don't see any solid evidence for Tocharian coming out of SW Asia. However, that doesn't mean his exact routes happened the way he mentions. He doesn't attribute the spread of IE with the Maikop culture as it opened the trans-caucasian trade networks with eastern Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Perhaps there is a tie-in with Euphratic here.

As for R1b becoming the most frequent in western Europe, I think they had to have something to do with the spread of IE languages. This also doesn't mean they had to have come from the first steppe pastoralists.

Let's say R1b is a primary hg in contact the Pontic steppe cultures. First, it has to arrive there. I see two possibilities. One is from SW Asia in the neolithic, through the Caucasus around Dagestan. The other also, from SW Asia with the neolithic farmers of SE Europe. This one ends up in west Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. The steppe people were described primarily as robust, large headed, dolicho- and mesocephalic people with distinctly broad faces. However, there was some integration with the incoming neolithics. These are basically cro-magnon-like traits carried over from the mesolithic. This seems more like hg I2 men as the dominant steppe y-hg. This works against R1b, if it entered in the neolithic or later.

Still R1b has to be in contact with the pastoralists for some time in order to work with Anthony's model and imo to take advantage of the secondary products revolution. This gives them an edge over the farmers who arrived earlier like hg's F, G2a, etc. R1b seems more like a later wave of neolithic people who fused with the indigenous steppe people in order to bring about the development of IE. There were two known large incursions of steppe people as far as Hungary. The steppe people themselves may not have penetrated farther, but a "kurganized" proto-Beaker R1b people did perhaps as a reaction to steppe intruders.

Here is a Hungarian study on craniometry of the Hungarian plain from the Koros culture to the Celts from Debrecen University.

I can't read Hungarian, but I could pick out the supplemental data starting around page 180 for male crania. There are about 5 or 6 Yamnaya crania or what the author labels Okkersiros (Ochre-grave). They seem to be a mixed lot, though it's hard to tell with a limited set of dimensions recorded. It doesn't suggest a large wave of predominantly cro-magnon-like horse raiders based on the limited data, which lends support to gracile farmers becoming "Indo-Europeanized". Whoever they were they did build thousands of mounds in eastern Hungary.

You still don't have a real convincing methodology for the transmission of Indo-European all the way from the steppe to the Atlantic. The Beaker folk are now thought to have originated in Iberia. So, you would have to have them or their culture get to the Hungarian Plain, get Indo-Europeanized there by the Yamnaya people, and then move back west, Indo-Europeanizing everybody they meet along the way.

It is also not necessary for the Tocharians to have spread from SW Asia. They could have come from the steppe after its people learned their Indo-European via the influx of farmers into the Balkans. In other words, the steppe people were Indo-Europeanized by contact with Neolithic farmers and not the other way around. This could have happened early, so that horse and wheel terms appear early on but not so much in archaic forms of Indo-European like the Anatolian languages.

I think the skull forms on the steppe become important only if one first assumes that is where Indo-European originated.

You still don't have a real convincing methodology for the transmission of Indo-European all the way from the steppe to the Atlantic. The Beaker folk are now thought to have originated in Iberia. So, you would have to have them or their culture get to the Hungarian Plain, get Indo-Europeanized there by the Yamnaya people, and then move back west, Indo-Europeanizing everybody they meet along the way.

. . .

Unless, like Jean, you bring Stelae People from the Black Sea to Iberia by boat.

Personally I have never felt the Kurgan model or its variants really feels right. It just feels extremely convoluted and involves many many leaps of faith. The spread of farming hypothesis has a convincing simplicity. I certainly dont think that trying to date the dispersal of IE though vocab is safe and I do recall that experts in the field have stated as much.

Eurphratic is an incredibly interesting idea. The archaeology and ancient history of Iraq is one of the advanced core being overrun by invasion from the periphery until they in turn became more advanced and were again overrun by less advanced martial people from the marginal peripheries. It seems to have been a bit of a cycle. When I heard that the basis of the idea of Euphratic is this very phenomenon, only pushing it back further and saying that Sumerian itself was due to peripheral people conquering an IE core, it rang true to me.

For those interested in the area there is a wonderful book called Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux the late French historian. You will see what I mean about the repeated toppling of the advanced core by the periphery in Mesopotamia/Summer. Obviously it doesnt actually touch on this new theory as the last edition was in the early 90s. Still, its a rare example of a small book that really leaves you with an understanding of that part of the ancient world.

You still don't have a real convincing methodology for the transmission of Indo-European all the way from the steppe to the Atlantic. The Beaker folk are now thought to have originated in Iberia. So, you would have to have them or their culture get to the Hungarian Plain, get Indo-Europeanized there by the Yamnaya people, and then move back west, Indo-Europeanizing everybody they meet along the way.

It is also not necessary for the Tocharians to have spread from SW Asia. They could have come from the steppe after its people learned their Indo-European via the influx of farmers into the Balkans. In other words, the steppe people were Indo-Europeanized by contact with Neolithic farmers and not the other way around. This could have happened early, so that horse and wheel terms appear early on but not so much in archaic forms of Indo-European like the Anatolian languages.

I think the skull forms on the steppe become important only if one first assumes that is where Indo-European originated.

Whittaker includes a lot of vocabulary in the paper, and there are some interesting similarities with IE languages. If Euphratic is indeed IE, that would fall more in line with Neolithic farmers spreading it, hence R1b's connection.

You still don't have a real convincing methodology for the transmission of Indo-European all the way from the steppe to the Atlantic. The Beaker folk are now thought to have originated in Iberia. So, you would have to have them or their culture get to the Hungarian Plain, get Indo-Europeanized there by the Yamnaya people, and then move back west, Indo-Europeanizing everybody they meet along the way.

It is also not necessary for the Tocharians to have spread from SW Asia. They could have come from the steppe after its people learned their Indo-European via the influx of farmers into the Balkans. In other words, the steppe people were Indo-Europeanized by contact with Neolithic farmers and not the other way around. This could have happened early, so that horse and wheel terms appear early on but not so much in archaic forms of Indo-European like the Anatolian languages.

I think the skull forms on the steppe become important only if one first assumes that is where Indo-European originated.

What I'm saying is that the Beaker package is an end result of a process that started much earlier, not that they originated in Hungary from Yamnaya settlers. I can't really equate Beaker with Yamnaya in a direct sense. The people who would become Bell Beakers were already in place or were in the process of being pushed west by pastoralists. There is evidence of warfare in southern France starting around 3500 with an marked increase of arrow wounds on skeletal remains. True, the earliest Beaker dates are in SW Europe and there was an expansion from there. For R1b it may have been a partial back migration to the east. I think most will agree that R1b comes from the east or southeast initially.

The Tocharian branch is supposed to have left the steppe around 3700 from the Repin culture near the Volga. PIE was 800 years old or so at this time in the steppe theory. There is no record of Tripolye farmer settlements east of the Dnieper which they didn't reach until about 4000. Any contact between those two groups could have occurred though it is speculative at this point.

I haven't read much about Euphratic. Are you looking at it as some kind of pre-proto IE language? If so, I suppose it could have been brought by later waves of farmers around 5000 along with R1b and lactose tolerance to Romania or west Ukraine. With this, the timing is still close enough for Anthony's model of diffusion by pastoralist societies.

Rich, I don’t know if you have read my about 5 thousand letters, probably I have read your more than 10 thousand ones. Yes, the theory of an Italian Refugium is mine. I have brought many proofs and I’ll continue to bring till someone won’t have falsified it. So far it is a theory like many others in this struggle.Of course during the Younger Dryas we had some R1b1* in Italy. Re. my hypothesis that the African R1b1* could have come from Italy (or Spain) and not Middle East, the great Fulvio Cruciani wrote to me that he couldn’t say yes or not, but that he would have taken in consideration it. Now he has revolutionized the A tree. I hope that he does something also on this.Certainly by the 1000 Genomes Project has come out that the most ancient R-U152-s were in Tuscany and not elsewhere.The R1b1b2 in the Eastern Countries are demonstrating to be different (by own SNPs) from the Western ones, then they aren’t mostly the ancestors of our subclades (and they are above all Armenian, then from Indo-Europeans come from the Balkans and not born in the East). I think having demonstrated this when I individuated the cluster which generated the Western R1b1b2, that with YCAII=18-23.I have read the paper on Euphratic and that language was the ancestor of Latin more than other Indo-European branch. The satem languages didn’t yet exist then.

1) R1b1b2 isn’t from Middle East nor from East Europe (Kurgans, Maykop etc.), but from Western Europe (Italy I think)2) The authors use the genealogical mutation rate with many hairsplittings. Nobody denies that it may be worth in the short time, but it isn’t worth in the long one.

Similarly, two different haplotype clusters within R1b1b2-M269 (Supplementary Figure 1) were found in the Lezghins (30%) and in Ossets-Digor (16%). These concentrations of (presumably European) haplogroups R1a*-M198(xM458), R1a1a7-M458 and R1b1b2-M269 found in few locations in the Caucasus might indicate independent migrations from Europe that were too small to make any significant impact on Caucasus populations (page 16).

The Indo-European-speaking Ossets were outliers in the Caucasus linguistic tree, and the genetic tree also placed them separately, with slight similarity to the Abkhaz. Generally, the tree based on genetic distances mirrored the linguistic tree in its overall pattern and in most details (page 17).

The age for the four major haplogroups in individual populations obtained by using SD estimator (Supplementary Table 3) are close to the Neolithic epoch, and might be interpreted as signs of population expansion due to the shift to a farming economy(page 20).

Although occupying a boundary position between Europe and the Near East, all fourmajor Caucasus haplogroups show signs of a Near Eastern rather than European origin (Figure 2, Supplementary Figure 1). These four haplogroups reach their maximum (worldwide) frequencies in the Caucasus (Table 2, Figure 2). They are either shared with Near East populations (G2a3b1-P303 and J2a4b*-M67(xM92)) or have ancestral lineages present there (G2a1*-P16(xP18) and J1*-M267(xP58)). Typical European haplogroups are very rare (I2a- P37.2) or limited to specific populations (R1a1a-M198; R1b1b2-M269) in the Caucasus (page 22).

It should be mentioned here that, for the BATWING tree (which does not requireidentifying the clusters), applying the genealogical rate underestimates the dates, while applying evolutionary rates overestimates the dates (page 23).

Personally I have never felt the Kurgan model or its variants really feels right. It just feels extremely convoluted and involves many many leaps of faith. The spread of farming hypothesis has a convincing simplicity. I certainly dont think that trying to date the dispersal of IE though vocab is safe and I do recall that experts in the field have stated as much . . .

That's my feeling, too. It seems to me Anthony's argument against the Neolithic Farmer hypothesis is mainly linguistic, i.e., that PIE isn't old enough to have come to Europe with the farmers, etc. But I don't think he should be so sure about that. Linguistic dating for Indo-European is iffy at best.

As it is, the oldest attested IE languages are the Anatolian, and even Anthony points out their archaic nature, going so far as to say they could be classed as a sort of "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" group.

Now Euphratic appears to move Indo-European in that neck of the woods back even further.

As I mentioned before, there just doesn't seem to be anything the steppe people had to offer that would serve as a real powerhouse driving force for the spread of Indo-European. Where is the evidence that they did? How did their supposed elite dominance in the Lower Danube Valley translate into a march of Indo-European all the way to the Atlantic?

Farming and animal husbandry, on the other hand, represent a real revolution - the Neolithic Revolution - in the way human beings acquired and stored food, the staff of life itself. Its progress to the farthest reaches of Europe is well attested.

If it was indeed accompanied by a major influx of new people, especially males, then it could have very well been the vehicle for the spread of Indo-European.

You still don't have a real convincing methodology for the transmission of Indo-European all the way from the steppe to the Atlantic. The Beaker folk are now thought to have originated in Iberia. So, you would have to have them or their culture get to the Hungarian Plain, get Indo-Europeanized there by the Yamnaya people, and then move back west, Indo-Europeanizing everybody they meet along the way.

. . .

Unless, like Jean, you bring Stelae People from the Black Sea to Iberia by boat.

Anthony emphasised the maritime migration route from the earliest settlement of the Greek Islands using Byblos boats to the later Phoenician voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules and settlement near Tartessian. The Megalithic builders 4,500 -3,500 BC traded along the Atlantic Facade including Brittany and Ireland.He made the point that a round trip from Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules and back again could easily be accomplished in the Summer sailing season using the favorable currents of the Meditteranean. He also pointed out that Neolithic people could navigate the great rivers of Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast in less than six months. Coastal hopping and river navigation probably happened a lot quicker than agricultural diffusion.

Personally I have never felt the Kurgan model or its variants really feels right. It just feels extremely convoluted and involves many many leaps of faith. The spread of farming hypothesis has a convincing simplicity. I certainly dont think that trying to date the dispersal of IE though vocab is safe and I do recall that experts in the field have stated as much . . .

That's my feeling, too. It seems to me Anthony's argument against the Neolithic Farmer hypothesis is mainly linguistic, i.e., that PIE isn't old enough to have come to Europe with the farmers, etc. But I don't think he should be so sure about that. Linguistic dating for Indo-European is iffy at best.

As it is, the oldest attested IE languages are the Anatolian, and even Anthony points out their archaic nature, going so far as to say they could be classed as a sort of "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" group.

Now Euphratic appears to move Indo-European in that neck of the woods back even further.

As I mentioned before, there just doesn't seem to be anything the steppe people had to offer that would serve as a real powerhouse driving force for the spread of Indo-European. Where is the evidence that they did? How did their supposed elite dominance in the Lower Danube Valley translate into a march of Indo-European all the way to the Atlantic?

Farming and animal husbandry, on the other hand, represent a real revolution - the Neolithic Revolution - in the way human beings acquired and stored food, the staff of life itself. Its progress to the farthest reaches of Europe is well attested.

If it was indeed accompanied by a major influx of new people, especially males, then it could have very well been the vehicle for the spread of Indo-European.

Sure makes a lot of sense, or seems to.

It just feels at present that the Kurgan model doesnt convince east of east-central Europe. The bottom line is unless it is currently being interpreted wrongly or what happens was different from what is being inferred from the remains, we do not have any culture that links the steppes with most of western Europe. It will probably take ancient DNA to prove otherwise. Until such a time, I think linking the beakers with either the spread of R1b or of IE is very counterintuitive. Lets put it this way. R1b seems to have spread from an origin point in or near the fertile cresent, probably passed through Asia Minor into the SE of Europe and seems likely (although this has been the hardest part to totally prove) passed through central Europe in L11 form branching north and west If we set aside the chronology and dating and just look at the origin area, apparent route of spread and its huge impact it is hard to not be struck by the amazing similarity with what in pre-DNA days archaeologists were saying about the spread of farming. To try and march beakers with R1b, its origin point, its route, its impact etc just seems very unlikely to me. Lets put it this way, if beakers are the origin of R1b then the art of inference using archaeological data is in big trouble.

The main doubt I still have is whether R1b spread in the first wave of farmers into Europe or trickled in a little later in some secondary spread from the early dairying area of NW Turkey. This seemed to spread from there across the Dardanelles first. From there dairying had spread as far as Britain by 4000BC and must have first passed through central Europe. I suspect that involved some human element, perhaps the element that changed LBK cultures into (still partly LBK_derived) middle Neolithic cultures.

Anthony emphasised the maritime migration route from the earliest settlement of the Greek Islands using Byblos boats to the later Phoenician voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules and settlement near Tartessian. The Megalithic builders 4,500 -3,500 BC traded along the Atlantic Facade including Brittany and Ireland.He made the point that a round trip from Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules and back again could easily be accomplished in the Summer sailing season using the favorable currents of the Meditteranean. He also pointed out that Neolithic people could navigate the great rivers of Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast in less than six months. Coastal hopping and river navigation probably happened a lot quicker than agricultural diffusion.

You know, I've read that book from cover to cover a couple of times, and I recall the mention of boats, but not as a vehicle for the spread of Indo-European, and not with any real emphasis. But my memory could be faulty. I'll have to go back and reread that section.

Which Bronze Age culture came into western Europe from the Black Sea in boats in enough strength to have spread Indo-European?

Anthony emphasised the maritime migration route from the earliest settlement of the Greek Islands using Byblos boats to the later Phoenician voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules and settlement near Tartessian. The Megalithic builders 4,500 -3,500 BC traded along the Atlantic Facade including Brittany and Ireland.He made the point that a round trip from Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules and back again could easily be accomplished in the Summer sailing season using the favorable currents of the Meditteranean. He also pointed out that Neolithic people could navigate the great rivers of Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast in less than six months. Coastal hopping and river navigation probably happened a lot quicker than agricultural diffusion.

You know, I've read that book from cover to cover a couple of times, and I recall the mention of boats, but not as a vehicle for the spread of Indo-European, and not with any real emphasis. But my memory could be faulty. I'll have to go back and reread that section.

Which Bronze Age culture came into western Europe from the Black Sea in boats in enough strength to have spread Indo-European?

Personally I have never felt the Kurgan model or its variants really feels right. It just feels extremely convoluted and involves many many leaps of faith. The spread of farming hypothesis has a convincing simplicity. I certainly dont think that trying to date the dispersal of IE though vocab is safe and I do recall that experts in the field have stated as much . . .

That's my feeling, too. It seems to me Anthony's argument against the Neolithic Farmer hypothesis is mainly linguistic, i.e., that PIE isn't old enough to have come to Europe with the farmers, etc. But I don't think he should be so sure about that. Linguistic dating for Indo-European is iffy at best.

As it is, the oldest attested IE languages are the Anatolian, and even Anthony points out their archaic nature, going so far as to say they could be classed as a sort of "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" group.

Now Euphratic appears to move Indo-European in that neck of the woods back even further.

....Farming and animal husbandry, on the other hand, represent a real revolution - the Neolithic Revolution - in the way human beings acquired and stored food, the staff of life itself. Its progress to the farthest reaches of Europe is well attested.

If it was indeed accompanied by a major influx of new people, especially males, then it could have very well been the vehicle for the spread of Indo-European.....

I'm open to a Euphratic/IE/Neolithic idea and that being a carrier for R-M269 but I don't understand the Euphratic/IE link.

Are you saying that Euphratic has the full PIE word set? We know that Anthony classified Anatolian as pre-IE for a reason.

To call one thing (Neolithic) a real revolution while to say another (Bronze Age/IE culture) is not, is a matter of degrees and subjectivity. I recognize that the Cunliffe recognizes the LBK and the Cardial Wares and significant people moving cultural expansions. He did not categorize the middle Neolithic expansions in the same manner.

I recognize and accept that the Neolithiic expansions are a real possibility as the primary carrier for R-M269 across Europe. There is also an uncanny correlation to R-M269 in Europe to Centum IE languages.

However, I don't see how the IE languages might have been spread by the Neolithic advances. I suppose I have been convinced by Anthony that he put a fence around the timeframe and geography that PIE was spoken. It may be possible that a Euphratic language spoken in Iraq was pre-IE. However, the IE languages found in Europe are derived from PIE and have words that only would have only been found within the perimeter that Anthony laid out.

This does not mean that Neolithic peoples didn't speak a pre-IE or a sister to IE language. This also does not mean that R-M269 couldn't have spread with the Neolithic.

I just don't think that linking a pre-IE Euphratic language to the Neolithic advances enhances the probability that the IE languages we now speak got to Europe through the Neolithic advances. I'm open this, but I don't understand how that could be so at this time. As I said, I suppose I have been convinced by Anthony whereas I wasn't be Renfrew. Of course, Anthony wrote with knowledge of Renfrew's work. Has anyone provided a scholarly challenge to Anthony, taking the Neolithic case up for PIE?

Perhaps the Neolithic advances and R1b spread together through Europe with pre-IE, rather than "Turkic" (as Klyosov says.) That made for a large group of potential subjects to a Bronze Age true-IE cultural advance. The farmers could understand the metal working people/pastoralists, but they just needed to pickup a few of their words and ideas. This actually appears along the lines of Klyosov's theory (EDIT: I have say that is only remotely so), it's just that he has it wrong in that R1b spoke pre-IE, not Turkic (or whatever version of it he is trying to articulate.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm very open to the Euphratic/IE/Neolithic idea. I just don't get it yet.

After looking at the paper, I don't see a strong connection to the neolithic other than common geography.

Whittaker's case is based on words in early cunieform texts of the Uruk period c. 3350 BC. There are some loan words and suffixes which is interesting with noted connections to Celtic, Germanic, Thracian (proto?), and West Tocharian. This is contemporary with the Maikop trans-caucasian period (c.3900-2500). I think it is much more likely that IE vocabulary was coming out of the caucasus and into Mesopotamia via Maikop traders. The archaeological evidence supports the connection between these two regions. Also, in Anthony's theory Tocharian branches off about 3700, proto-Germanic 3300, and proto-Italo-Celtic 3100. Actually Whittaker is compatible with Anthony's work.

On the other hand, if it is a proto-language for IE from the neolithic then we have a large gap of time to account for where languages like Celtic did little branching.

G2a was also one of the haplogroups represented in a small sample from Neolithic Central Europe. I think we can now safely say that G2a may have been the main Neolithic link that ties the farmers that went north across the Balkans to Central Europe, and those that followed the western, maritime route to the Western Mediterranean. The unambiguous West Asian origin of this lineage should put to rest any ideas about Neolithic farmers in the Western Mediterranean being descended from indigenous Mesolithic foragers.

I-P37.2 is also quite interesting, as it is tied to the Balkans, but also modern Southwestern Europe (it is especially frequent in Sardinia in its derived M26+ form). ISOGG tells me that:

I2-M438 et al includes I2* which shows some membership from Armenia, Georgia and Turkey; I2a-P37.2, which is the most common form in the Balkans and Sardinia. I2a1-M26 is especially prevalent in Sardinia. I2b-M436 et al reaches its highest frequency along the northwest coast of continental Europe. I2b1-M223 et al occurs in Britain and northwest continental Europe. I2b1a-M284 occurs almost exclusively in Britain, so it apparently originated there and has probably been present for thousands of years.

If these aren't signals of a maritime pioneer colonization that followed the maritime route along the Mediterranean and Atlantic, I don't know what is.

What is absent is also quite interesting as what is present. The absence of E1b1b is consistent with my theory about the Bronze Age Greek expansion of that haplogroup in Europe that has been tied to the historical Greeks of the West Mediterranean.

R-M269 which, because of its apparent young Y-STR age has been tied by some to either the Mediterranean or Central European Neolithic is conspicuous absently from both at the moment. It may yet surface in a Neolithic context, but its absence this late from a region where, today, it is abundant only adds to its mystery. The absence of J2 is equally mysterious, as this is another putative Neolithic lineage which has failed to appear so far in a Neolithic context, while its J1 sister clade did make an appearance in much later aboriginals from the Canary Islands.

G2a was also one of the haplogroups represented in a small sample from Neolithic Central Europe. I think we can now safely say that G2a may have been the main Neolithic link that ties the farmers that went north across the Balkans to Central Europe, and those that followed the western, maritime route to the Western Mediterranean. The unambiguous West Asian origin of this lineage should put to rest any ideas about Neolithic farmers in the Western Mediterranean being descended from indigenous Mesolithic foragers.

I-P37.2 is also quite interesting, as it is tied to the Balkans, but also modern Southwestern Europe (it is especially frequent in Sardinia in its derived M26+ form). ISOGG tells me that:

I2-M438 et al includes I2* which shows some membership from Armenia, Georgia and Turkey; I2a-P37.2, which is the most common form in the Balkans and Sardinia. I2a1-M26 is especially prevalent in Sardinia. I2b-M436 et al reaches its highest frequency along the northwest coast of continental Europe. I2b1-M223 et al occurs in Britain and northwest continental Europe. I2b1a-M284 occurs almost exclusively in Britain, so it apparently originated there and has probably been present for thousands of years.

If these aren't signals of a maritime pioneer colonization that followed the maritime route along the Mediterranean and Atlantic, I don't know what is.

What is absent is also quite interesting as what is present. The absence of E1b1b is consistent with my theory about the Bronze Age Greek expansion of that haplogroup in Europe that has been tied to the historical Greeks of the West Mediterranean.

R-M269 which, because of its apparent young Y-STR age has been tied by some to either the Mediterranean or Central European Neolithic is conspicuous absently from both at the moment. It may yet surface in a Neolithic context, but its absence this late from a region where, today, it is abundant only adds to its mystery. The absence of J2 is equally mysterious, as this is another putative Neolithic lineage which has failed to appear so far in a Neolithic context, while its J1 sister clade did make an appearance in much later aboriginals from the Canary Islands.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the odds of R-M269 being the "lead" carrier in the great LBK (Linear Pottery) and Impressed Wares (Cardial Pottery) expansions are being diminished.

This is going to spur a lot of discussion (and speculation) for the next several months. Whether a neolithic or copper age entry into Europe, it's very interesting that no R1b would show up in 3000 BC southern France where it is a majority today.

This is going to spur a lot of discussion (and speculation) for the next several months. Whether a neolithic or copper age entry into Europe, it's very interesting that no R1b would show up in 3000 BC southern France where it is a majority today.

The absence of E1b1b is consistent with my theory about the Bronze Age Greek expansion of that haplogroup in Europe....The absence of J2 is equally mysterious, as this is another putative Neolithic lineage which has failed to appear so far in a Neolithic context.

I think this is speculative, but if Dienekes is right, E1b1b1 is a late "Greek" newcomer. J2, along with T, is what Spencer Wells (National Genographic) calls "Mediterranean Trader" (aka Phoenician.)

Perhaps, the "Old Europe" Neolithic settlements did eventually deteriorate to be replaced as the dominant horizon just like those before it..... or perhaps the population didn't drop much, but some Y DNA lineages were diminished or exterminated.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the odds of R-M269 being the "lead" carrier in the great LBK (Linear Pottery) and Impressed Wares (Cardial Pottery) expansions are being diminished.

This is going to spur a lot of discussion (and speculation) for the next several months. Whether a neolithic or copper age entry into Europe, it's very interesting that no R1b would show up in 3000 BC southern France where it is a majority today.

Let's wait. The mtDNA was practically the same of to-day, then no introgression after then, and Oetzi is knocking at the door.

Mike-I never knew about Euphratic until a week ago so I have no real idea what its implications are. One thing in re-reading a little of Renfrew reminded me of recently was his warning not to trust vocab too much to reconstruct dispersals. It would be easy enough for groups to move off but remain in enough contact through wide networks for words and innovations to spread. There were some very big networks in the Neolithic that could easily have (potentially patchily) spread words, ideas etc.

I do wonder if there was a longish period between dispersal and the evolution of the dispersed groups into distinct dialects. If there was such a period it may be very hard to distinguish words which came with the people and words that spread later by contact networks between the related but dispersed IE peoples. Dienekes in his blog points out that the date most talked about is really the split up of PIE but does not tell us anything about how long the period between the beginning of PIE and its end was. Strong contact networks (even if they were relay fashion) could have not only moved new words about in a way that cannot be distinguished from inherited words but it may have prolonged a period and geographical spread of PIE. It may not be right to see PIE as a pre-dispersal localised kernel.

I just feel Anthony puts far too much weight on recontructing fundementals based on the presence or absence of words in IE dialects. One thing is clear is that IE languages were very odd and quirky in terms of which words were kept in common from PIE and which ones were dropped, even down to IE having kept some words for one part of the body but not having a shared word for another. Some dialects just dropped words for everyday things. It astonishes me the way in languages native words for everyday things, emotions etc are sometimes inexplicably replaced by borrowed words from another language. The fact the word is a borrowing from a later language tells us nothing about the thing the word describes as it long predates the local arrival of that language.

I also think archaeology, until a very large amount of sampling is done, can only be said to provide the terminus anti quem or the date before which something must have arrived/com into being. To move from that to saying that the oldest example of something discovered to date is indeed providing the origin point and date is a leap of faith whose odds only shorted as volume of excavation increases.

So, although I am far from an expert and barely keep up on this subject to be honest, I do think the way Anthony uses a very few specific items from linguistics and archaeology to support his thesis looks a bit of a house of cards. There is a lot of wriggle room left I suspect. How the various states of PIE, Anatolian and Euphratic work when the wriggle room is fully acknowledged (rather than Anthony's attempt to claim a knockout blow) I dont know.